Fort Wayne’s first mall, Glenbrook Square, opened in 1966 on the north side of town. Three years later, Indianapolis-based Simon decided that Fort Wayne’s recent and projected growth indicated it could support a second enclosed regional mall. Located on the south side of town, Southtown Mall opened in July 1969. Southtown’s single-level complex debuted with a 100,000 square-foot Montgomery Ward and a 114,000 square-foot Fort Wayne-based Wolf and Dessauer department store, which was acquired that same year by Indianapolis-based L.S. Ayres. When Southtown opened, it had 567,000 square feet of retail space, including the anchors. In addition, G.C. Murphy operated a 60,000 square-foot junior anchor store, and there was a single-screen cinema, which was twinned in 1972 and expanded to a triplex in 1982.

Located in north central Indiana about 90 miles east of Chicago, South Bend, Indiana is home to the legendary Notre Dame University and for almost a hundred years was also the home of the Studebaker auto empire. In addition, South Bend is the anchor of the entire Michiana region, a 7-county area of north central Indiana and southwest Michigan containing […]

Opened in 1968 at a busy intersection a few miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis, Lafayette Square Mall was the first major enclosed mall in the metropolitan area. Although other large outdoor shopping centers existed since the 50s such as Glendale Center, Lafayette Square was the first in a trend of enclosed shopping centers which would […]

Elkhart, Indiana is a cozy medium-sized city of about 50,000 people located all the way at the top of Indiana, right in the middle of the state. It’s literally right next to South Bend and a little over 100 miles east of Chicago on the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90). If you ever played a musical instrument in school, like […]

Our friend Jay sent us these cool early-90s photos of a pair of malls in extreme southern Indiana, just outside of Louisville. These two malls are located in very close proximity to one another off the Lewis & Clark Pkwy. and Greentree Boulevard, just off I-65. Green Tree Mall is the older of the two, […]

Cozily nestled on the southeastern shores of Lake Michigan, Michigan City is an industrial, working-class city of about 32,000 people. It’s about 60 miles east of downtown Chicago and 40 miles west of South Bend. The dominant features of the landscape are the giant, 600-foot NIPSCO energy cooling tower and Mt. Baldy, a 123 foot sand […]

County Line Mall was a small enclosed mall located at US 31 and County Line Road at the southern edge of Indianapolis. It was built in 1976, and was never meant to be anything big. It spent its entire life housing no more than 20-30 smaller stores surrounding a hallway in front of a larger, 100,000 […]

Nestled on the south shore of Lake Michigan, within a stone’s throw from Chicago, is the prominent industrial region of Northwest Indiana. Hammond, the second largest city in this region, lies directly between Gary and Chicago and had a 2000 population of 83,000. Hammond was also home to one of Northwest Indiana’s enclosed shopping centers, […]

Browse by state to find photos, histories and discussion about shopping centers throughout the U.S. and Canada., read our coverage of dead malls (the reason most people visit us) or learn why we created Labelscar.

Recent Comments:

J Hyde: Dallas Galleria is not as upscale as it used to be. I haven’t been there in years…but can tell by the...

Craig Nowak: As much as I hate advertising, I have a retail blog of my own and I am trying to bring traffic to it....

June: Does anybody know the names of any of the smaller stores that were in North Hills Mall. I think there was a small 5...

Tara: Pearl Theatres, AT & T, Suglia’s Pizza, and Dunham’s Sports are a few of the stores left. Bath and...

Tara: This mall will be closed soon, and the rumor is that the new owners will be knocking it down. I have photos from...